2016 Year in Preview: Ad blocking will force the industry to put the user experience first. This essay is just one in a series of 10 produced by Digiday’s staff of reporters and editors in which we look to the major trends of 2016.

The full series is available for download in one PDF - Sign up here for a copy. If publishers weren’t thinking about the user before, they will in the coming year.
The next wave of ad blocking is arriving, slowly. The creeping adoption of ad blocking will only continue to expand in the coming months, an ongoing shift that will have a middling effect on revenue for news organizations that rely on digital display advertising.

That’s according to a new report from Digital Content Next, a trade organization with a membership comprising some of the most recognizable names in news: The New York Times, The Associated Press and CBS, to name a few. The report, an analysis of consumer outlook on blockers, falls short of describing the trend in apocalyptic terms but admonishes publishers to figure out a way forward sooner rather than later. “On a scale of one to ten, my concern is at a level eight or nine – our industry has ignored consumer concerns and now these same consumers are speaking up by installing ad blocking software,” Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, said in a release.
Why Running Ads on Both Facebook and Instagram Is Likely the New Normal. Advertisers have their best chance yet to double flank consumers on social media as Instagram continues to expand its advertising capabilities by building on what Facebook started long ago.

Instagram has said it plans to work with 100 companies around the world to better improve the quality of its still young ad operation. The first 41 companies, unveiled Tuesday, are working with the platform to bring in new advertising business. Initial focus areas include improved planning and buying processes as well as better consumer insights and faster content-creation tools. Add in the fact that Instagram is now powered with Facebook's huge collection of interest-level user data, and the developments beg the question: Will well-budgeted campaigns now almost always include both Facebook and Instagram ads? New Instagram partners like Adobe, Salesforce, 4C, Spredfast, Hootsuite and AdParlor also often facilitate ads on Facebook.
Google Brings Its App Streaming Technology To Mobile Ads. Last month, Google introduced a new way for web searchers to find the information they want – even when that content was locked inside a mobile application.

The search engine would return results for in-app content, and offer you the ability to “stream” the app from the web to your phone, if you didn’t already have it installed on your device. Today, Google is expanding the capabilities of app streaming by allowing developers to take advantage of the technology for app install ads running on the AdMob network, which today reaches 650,000 applications.

That means app publishers will be able to produce ads that are actually mini-versions of their mobile games themselves, up to 60 seconds in length. The addition is one of two new app install ad formats arriving today, says Google, the other one being a way to create touchable, “swipeable,” more engaging and mobile-friendly advertisements called “Interactive Interstitials.” “You can buy ads, you can get apps installed.
Ad Blocking Is an (Unexpectedly) Big Issue in China.

There hasn't been a lot of attention paid to ad blocking in China, leading many to assume it isn't a big issue yet.

But new research suggests that perception is wrong. A study by Omnicom's PHD in China found that about 10% to 12% of ads delivered to personal computers are being blocked, said Lars Bjorge, chief digital officer of PHD in greater China. The number is lower on mobile devices, at 3% to 3.5%, he said.
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Why we're stuck with display ads on our phones. Display ads are the most commonly used ad format on your phone, but they are really just another holdover from the desktop PC era. Using ads that have an interactive look and feel that’s more like the mobile experience would be much better, but the advertising industry doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get there. “Mobile display ads is still a multibillion-dollar business,” pointed out Pandora Internet Radio‘s Michael Branch at the Ad:tech conference in New York City Wednesday.

Something that big isn’t going to turn on a dime — there’s just too much money in the current practiced method of buying, selling, and placing mobile display ads. From VentureBeat How do you get consumers to connect with and engage with your brand flawlessly? “Our industry is very focused on tonnage,” Branch said, meaning that the industry is better at putting lots of ads in front of lots of eyeballs, without personalizing or customizing the content.
Product insights from wechat. Product insights from wechat Last week, I went to a panel on WeChat Product Philosophy and Innovation,which included key and founding members of the WeChat product and engineering teams who shared product insights and data outside of China for the first time.